Divergence
by demondreaming
Summary: Cat's not the same as she used to be. There are two parts of her now, and neither feels real. She can't fix herself, but she knows something's wrong. Rated T. Dark as dark.


**Disclaimer: Victorious is owned by Dan Schneider.**

It wasn't always like this. I wasn't always... I wasn't. I used to be... not normal, but not different. I was a variation on a theme, and that theme was happiness. You don't think, you just don't when you're a kid, because you don't need to. You don't need to crawl inside yourself and look around, because you're just whole. You're comfortable. You worry about things outside you, you never stop to look and see if you're okay inside. You don't need to. But things change. You can't stop them, you can want to, you can wish for things so much, but you don't get them. Wanting isn't enough. Things change, and you can't stop it. I changed. I... diverged. I looked at myself and I saw what other people saw. It hurt. It's not who I want to be. People... they think I'm simple, that I'm weird... I don't want to be, I didn't know I was. I think differently, that's all... I can't make myself think the same. People all think that everyone's the same as them. That's what I thought, until I realised that they looked at me strangely, that they didn't reach the same conclusions I did.

You know how it feels to have people look at you like that? Like they think you're stupid? How am I supposed to feel? It never occurred to me that I was different, until I started seeing how people treated me. They treated me different to the way they treated other people. They held me apart, treated me like I was some fragile thing they didn't want to break, but weren't sure how to handle. And it was fine at first, I could shrug it off. I already lived inside my head, I could just go further in, just pretend even more. But there's only so much you can fake. It eats away at you, like a cancer until you have to look at the diseased flesh and acknowledge it's there.

They're supposed to be my friends. And they are, I guess. More than anyone else. They're nice, but they're not better. They still look that way at me. If that's how my friends look at me, what am I supposed to see?

Maybe that's when it happened. Maybe it would've happened anyway. I don't know, I'm not sure I want to. But that girl... that dreamy girl who said whatever popped into her head... she changed. She diverged. I'm the same on the outside... but there was a split. It wasn't instant, but I could feel it happening. That cheeriness, that brightness started feeling more and more artificial. All the words were there, all the expressions were right, but that wasn't how I was feeling. I wasn't feeling anything... just... numb. I'd always been dreamy, but I was always there. I wasn't there anymore... I was... disconnected. I didn't... I _don't_ understand. Everything was so bright once, and now it's all changed.

It's like being underwater. People talk to you, but you don't know what they say, the possibilities fan themselves out in your mind, every permutation of meaning at once, and you don't know which one to follow. Everything is muted. My hair was a statement to that, a bright red rebellion to my monochromatic vista, but it too has faded. It's a parody of what I wanted, a sad reminder of how dull everything else is. It's a mockery, because it's the brightest thing I see, and it's dead. There's no point to it. Every breath you take is hard, because you're underwater, you're not supposed to be breathing it in, but you can't hold out any longer, and it burns, it hurts, but there's relief there as well. You can stop fighting.

The divergence... there's two parts of me. They're not separate, just sides of a coin. There's the shell of me, the bright and airy girl with the dreamy voice and even dreamier thoughts, who has as much substance as a cloud. She's a defense; a coping mechanism. People don't expect anything from her but her. She's harmless. The other part of me is me, not that the first isn't me... the real me lies in between. It's just the other me is so much more eloquent. It speaks in words whereas the shell of me speaks in emotions, in colors. This other me is the core. The rotted core, because it's not what it should be. It doesn't think the way it should, and I can't make it. It's insidious, it makes me chop and change, and I can't stay stable, can't be normal with these two conflicting voices in me. The shell is the buffer, it wears the emotions, the feelings, and the core whispers reasons for them. It's the shadow to the subject. It's not what it should be. It should be reversed, I shouldn't wear the emotions on the outside; let everyone know what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking (with that trivial shell). Jade got her order right. She speaks her steel words and keeps everything locked up inside. Sometimes I wish I was like her, because it seems proper. But I have no idea of her happiness. Of course, my outside emotions, my transparent shell... it gives the illusion of happiness, but it's just simplicity. It's my inner child, out.

It's not right. I'm not happy. I used to be happy, I remember being happy. Nothing's changed, nothing's changed except for inside. I don't... I don't know why, I don't know how to fix it. I can't fix it... it's me. I don't know how to change back, to be that whole person again. My friends.. they're whole. They're part of the problem, but they're not the cause. They like the old part of me, the surface. Dream Cat, happy Cat.

Tori looks at me like I'm not real. Jade looks at me like I'm a joke. Andre, Beck, Robbie... to call them friends is... is not right. Is not accurate. They're friends with Cat, but how can they be, when they don't know? How can I call them friends when I lie to them so much? The rationale is; I'm not lying if they don't ask. If they ever said, "What's wrong?" I'd answer. I'd tell them the truth. But they've never asked, so I never tell.

Things have darkened. Have fractured. It's not what it was. I say that, I keep saying that, because I don't understand. I used to be happy... I don't see how things are what they are now. I can't stop it, can't stop the sinking, the getting further away from what I was, what I still appear to be on the surface. Things have darkened. It's not just being disconnected. It whispers, it tells me things. But it's me, it's not voices in my head, it's _my_ voice. It's not right, but I can't not listen. I can't ignore it, can't escape because it's _in_ me.

I can feel it, you know. Feel that there's something wrong in me, something I can't fix. It'd be better if I thought... if I knew I was fine. I can feel it crawling inside me, under my skin. Like a centipede. I want it out, but it's symbiotic. To get it out... I'd have to kill myself.

Even now... I can't... I can't string things together. Everything is a fragment, and I can't fit them together again. I jump from thought to thought, mood to mood, and there's no connection, no common link to rest on, to build from. It's why I say what I say, because my thoughts don't follow a straight line. They jump to something they think is right, to something they think is appropriate, but they don't take in the context.

I speak in riddles, but only because I don't understand, can't fathom why, why am I? Am I so... lost, in myself. I feel so small, crouched inside me, and I can only watch as it happens, as things pour from my mouth and I don't understand. I don't understand what I say.

I'm an exaggeration of myself. A caricature. That's what it feels like, anyway. I used to be... huh. Used to be, used to be, used to be. I can't get past what I was, but what am I now? I used to be in control. I had mood swings, sure, but they were reasonable, they had cause, they weren't that bad. I can't control them anymore. I'm not stable... I can't... I can't think like I used to. I'm so different to what I was, I can feel it, but no one knows. No one notices.

They think they see. Think they see everything that is me, but they see a shell, an amalgamation of what they want, of easily-believed lies. It's lies but it's truth, because I could let it go. I could be what they want. I could let it go so easily – my mind – I can feel it, held by this tenuous thread, like a child holding a balloon, and if I wanted to, I could let it go, watch it sail away into the sky. But if I did that, I couldn't ever get it back. If I told them, if I was brave enough, would they care? Have I made them not care by virtue of my lies? By distancing myself mentally, have I stopped them thinking of me as a person; a scared, lonely person? I think so. You can't act like I act and not have people ask you questions. But they don't ask. Ergo, they don't care. It's a cry for help in itself, but a cowardly one.

I'm scared. I'm scared by this change. I've tried to push it away, to ignore it, but it's getting worse. I see therapists, but the same words pour out. They say I have problems but they never get them right. They just assume. They look at surface Cat and they don't look any further. Part of me wants it that way. It's safer. Even around them, even around my friends. They're my friends to me, but I'm not so sure the reverse is true.

It's easy to look at me and see the surface. It's the way I keep it; I'm a wading pool to them, you can see all the way through me, but it's an illusion. It's easy to be who I am with them, because they make me happy, much more than they know. They don't shun me, and I don't think they'd tolerate me for nothing. So there must be something good in me. Or is it something good in my act? I don't know how much of me is real anymore. They don't see. They don't see me. I hide deep down, and never make a sound.

I want to show them, I want to peel back my skin and show them bone, show them that I'm real, show them how much it hurts, point to my exposed, beating heart and beg them to understand. But it's dangerous. How can I show them something even I don't understand? I want them to fix me, I want to be who I was, but it's not fair on them. And things could go wrong so easily. They could not care, they could distance themselves. The possibility of things going wrong are so much higher than anything good coming out of it. I don't even know if they could fix me.

I can't feel anything anymore. My face lies. It says I'm happy, it says I think something's funny, it says I'm upset. Those things are true, but they're false at the same time. They're emotions, but they don't last. They're like a hurricane; the surface is all whipped up, but deep down, the water is still calm. I feel it, but it's brief, transient. Most of the time, it's nothing. Just... nothing. People assume I'm spacing out, and I guess there's some truth to that.

I miss feelings things. Having more than momentary moods. I want to feel again. I'd do anything just to feel again. There's only one thing that works. It makes me feel all sorts of things. For a time, better. Euphoric, even. And then shame, disappointment, regret. They're not positive, but at least they're emotions. At least they're real.

I've waited too long already. I've forgotten what it feels like, and my hand shakes as I position it, balanced on the edge of my bathtub.

I'm an artist. I hold the razorblade like a paintbrush, and begin my masterpiece. It's simple yet profound, just straight strokes on a soft surface, and I'm fascinated at the pause before the blood wells in the cuts, as if my body took a moment to realise it was broken, as if my blood was stunned by the freedom suddenly in front of it. I always paint the same picture, and it's always a self-portrait. I paint over the old, the fresh scars overlaying the faded ones, and it's a criss-cross, a tally of the days, of the months I've been trapped, locked away and scratching at my own flesh to get free.

I hate it. I hate that I'm doing this, but it's the only thing that works. I'm getting worse, I know. I'm having to cut more and more, just to feel anything. My mask is starting to slip. Surface Cat is fading away, real Cat, dark Cat... is bubbling up. I have to keep it together.

I wince as the blade slices open my finger. I'm not together. This isn't calm, isn't methodical. I'm not... I'm feeling too much. I've cut too deep. It's not the first time, but the adrenaline is still pounding it's way through me. Panic. It's a strong emotion. The razor drops into the bathtub, leaving a spatter of blood. It's the same colour as my hair, but this... this is life, this is alive. It hurts, it aches. Already the endorphins are wearing off, the regret starting in. It's not as potent as it used to be. I grab a wad of toilet paper, pressing it to my thigh, watching as the thin paper stains red. My finger twinges, the edges of the cut white. Fingers don't bleed much, but the split skin is irritating. It'll need a bandaid. It's already fading. The first flush of panic is gone, because I simply don't care. If I've cut too deep, I could bleed too much, I could go to hospital. I could even die, but I just can't feel anything about it. If it happens, it happens. At least then everyone would know, could see there was something wrong. They'd know, and I wouldn't have to tell them. It's part of why I do this, because when I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see anything wrong. So why should they? Why should they see what even I can't, what I can only feel?

I feel the aftereffects of my masterpiece, my work in progress. I'm dizzy, nauseous, the toilet paper starting to dampen my hand, stain it red as the blood seeps through it. I can't help myself, all I can do is sink further and try to cling to what I had. To try and pretend that it's not as bad as it is. But look at me... this isn't normal. I'm not happy. But I don't know what to do. How do you fix something when you don't know why it's broken?

**A/N: Please review. I know it's OOC, I know it's disjointed. I know it's a lot of things, but here it is anyway. I'm sorry if you didn't like it.**


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